Diamond wasn’t ignorant of forensic procedures, but he didn’t look forward to literally getting up the noses of the quartet without arresting them. He’d only just confirmed that murder had been committed and any evidence he had against the four was circumstantial. They wouldn’t think it a privilege to be asked for swab samples.
Sealy was still talking about the gun. ‘I wonder where the bullet ended up if it didn’t smash the window.’
‘He may have ducked,’ Diamond said, ‘in which case the angle could have been downwards and we’d find it lodged in the bodywork.’
One of the CSI team spoke up. ‘We already found it in the offside door, sir.’
‘Where is it, then?’
‘In an evidence bag with my boss. It’s a nine millimetre. Fits the Glock 17 that you see between the seats.’
‘Thanks.’ Diamond turned back to Sealy. ‘Is it too much to ask for an estimate?’
‘Of what? My fee?’
‘Time of death.’
‘Has any pathologist ever given you an accurate time of death? If so, he was either a bloody good guesser or the killer.’
‘Thanks for nothing, then.’
‘If I could give you an answer, believe me I would triple my fee.’
Diamond exited the tent and squirmed out of the protective suit. He’d formed a pretty clear picture of the killing. At some point last evening or early this morning Harry had parked the car opposite Anthony’s lodging with the intention of visiting him. His proven method was to sit in the car and observe before doing anything else. He may have spent the night there. The gun, his protection, would be kept somewhere handy, in a pocket, or the glove compartment, or lying on the passenger seat.
The killer had approached the car and seen Harry sitting behind the wheel. They knew each other, so it was not immediately a conflict situation. Harry hadn’t apparently wound down his window to speak. He must have reached across and opened the door on the passenger side, allowing the killer to lean inside or sit beside him and talk. At some point Harry must have mentioned the gun, as he had when speaking to Mel. The moment it was produced was the opportunity for the killer to grab it and fire at point blank range.
An impulsive killing.
The short period following the shot was critical. Had anyone in the nearby houses overheard? Quite likely. But if they went to their windows and looked out, what was there to see? Just the usual line of parked cars. The killer would wait five or ten minutes before quitting the scene. And there was time for a decision. Take the murder weapon away, or leave it close to Harry’s hand to suggest suicide? Maybe attempt to wipe it clean of prints and DNA first. Press it against Harry’s hand before placing it between the seats, and then slip quietly away.
But in the pressure of the moment basic errors had been made. The most obvious had already been made clear: a right-handed man doesn’t put a gun to the left side of his head. Suicide was never an option.
Firing the shot inside the car was another mistake. Sealy was right about gun shot residue, but in addition there would be DNA from the killer deposited on and around the passenger seat. It was a maxim of forensic science that every contact leaves a trace. Wiping the gun wouldn’t work either. These weren’t sterile conditions. Traces would remain.
All very encouraging for the investigation.
But there’s always a snag. The snag here was the familiar one that bedevilled modern detectives. Forensic science won’t be hurried. This was a complex scene. The car had been lived in for days, if not weeks. Talk about traces: it teemed with traces, of skin particles, hair, food, blanket fibres and all the other droplets and driblets that are deposited in a car every time it is used.
The evidence would be agonisingly slow in emerging. Weeks, probably.
Diamond needed a swifter result. He returned to the house.
Ivan and Cat were still waiting to have their statements taken. Ivan was like a corked volcano.
‘Can’t you speed this up? You’re supposed to be in charge.’
This was a helpful opening. ‘All right,’ Diamond said. ‘We can make a start right away.’
‘On what?’ Ivan said. ‘My statement as to where I was last night? It comes down to one sentence. You visited me yourself and I didn’t leave my lodgings until this morning when I got the call from Cat.’
Cat said, ‘Mine is a one-sentence statement, too. A seven forty-five call from Anthony’s landlady.’
‘Before we go into that,’ Diamond said, ‘I need some help from you both about what happened four years ago in Budapest.’
‘Budapest?’ Ivan said as if Diamond had named Timbuktu.
Cat was faster onto it. ‘Where Harry went AWOL? Not much we can help with there, your honour. It was a mystery at the time and I’m not much clearer now.’
‘You told me you searched the streets for him.’
‘It was panic stations. Ivan can tell you. We had a concert to give. Brilliant and talented as we are, we haven’t yet discovered how to play a string quartet without a violist.’
‘Was it unusual for Harry to let you down?’
‘Unheard of,’ Cat said. ‘Ivan will bear that out.’ She almost had to nudge him to speak up.
‘That is true,’ Ivan said after a pause for thought. ‘He would go off alone for hours on end — and we now know where — and always be in time for concerts and rehearsals. He had a playboy streak, but there was a responsibility there as well.’
‘And a sensitive side,’ Cat said.
‘Sensitive in what way?’
‘Whenever we performed in Vienna, he would visit Beethoven’s grave in the Central Cemetery and place a single sprig of rosemary there, for remembrance.’
‘The language of flowers?’ Diamond said with an upsurge of interest.
‘It is, isn’t it? I don’t know all the meanings, but Harry must have.’
He tucked that away in his memory. ‘What interests me in particular is what happened to his viola after he disappeared.’
‘The Maggini?’
‘Going by what he told Mel, it must have gone missing from his hotel room before the police made their search. A valuable antique instrument.’
‘A thing of beauty,’ Ivan said.
Cat asked Diamond, ‘What are you getting at? Do you think he took it with him?’
‘Highly unlikely,’ Diamond said. ‘He was doing the rounds of the shops trying to offload the ivory netsuke when the yakuza kidnapped him.’
‘Well now. That is a point,’ Cat said. ‘Of course he wouldn’t take the Maggini with him. He had it on trust and he looked after it. We’re all using priceless pieces of wood and gut to make music, including Mel. My cello is a Strad. Are you thinking our instruments are behind these crimes?’
‘People are behind them,’ Ivan said.
‘Of course, O Wise One,’ she said, ‘but people can be motivated by greed.’
Ivan snorted in impatience.
Diamond turned to him. ‘Don’t you agree?’
‘The instruments have nothing to do with any of this,’ Ivan said emphatically.
‘You sound confident.’
‘Because I am.’
‘So was it you who removed the Maggini from Harry’s room?’
Ivan flushed scarlet as if the suggestion was monstrous. He took in a deep breath. Then he sighed, his shoulders sagged and he admitted, ‘I took it into safe-keeping as a precaution. It was eventually returned to the true owner.’
‘I wish you’d told me earlier.’
‘There was an issue of confidence. The same owner presented me with the Guarnerius I play. He pledges us to secrecy.’
‘Who is the owner?’
‘I’m not at liberty to say.’
‘You won’t be at liberty much longer if you don’t say.’